Questions tagged [the-republic]
The Republic (Greek: Πολιτεία, Politeia) is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning justice, the order and character of the just, city-state, and the just man. It is Plato's best-known work, and has proven to be one of the world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically.
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Where did Socrates describe the tripartite of the soul in the Republic?
Reading through the books I to V, I couldn't a real explanation about the tripartite of the soul as I could find in the Phaedo. Reading in some analysis of the books[1], and the wikipedia article ...
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Why does Plato rank numbers fundamentally below certain other ideas?
As discussed in the analogy of the divided line in The Republic (509d–511e): mathematical knowledge does not achieve the height of knowledge about ideas that are given existence by the Good itself, ...
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Plato's Republic education system
What is the education system that Plato proposed?
E.g. the United States education system might be:
3-4 basic counting and communication
5-6 basic math, reading, writing, shapes, and time
7-11 deeper ...
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What does “being” mean in the context of Plato’s Republic?
Here is an excerpt from Plato Book V:
SOCRATES: “Tell us this: does someone who knows know something or nothing?” You answer for him.
GLAUCON: I will answer that he knows something.
SOCRATES: ...
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Looking for references to political/moral philosophy literature on communal child-rearing and the institution of the family
[Note: this question was previously closed under the reason "needs to be more focused". I subsequently edited the question to make it more focused and then hoped it would be reopened, but no ...
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How does Plato's theory of forms relate to his epistemology and philosophy of language?
In dialogues like Cratylus and Theatatus, it seems to me that Plato paints a very skeptical picture of our capacity to know or articulate knowledge. In Cratylus he doubts the possibility of language ...
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What does Plato think of human nature in the Republic?
In his Republic, Socrates describes the basic principle of the ideal society to be the separation, classification, and employment of men according to their natural abilities: a man is born with a ...
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Marriage, age and temperance in Plato's Republic
Temperance is one of the four cardinal virtues discussed in Plato's Republic. I understand temperance as restraint from excesses where 'excesses' refer to things that are not necessary or useful ...
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Why is it obviously false that the distribution of prime numbers can only be a matter of knowledge and never of opinion?
I'm reading "The Routledge Guidebook to Plato's Republic" (3rd edition) and Plato's "Republic".
In the Guidebook (chapter 7, pg 158, the section on Knowledge and Opinion), the 12th fundamental ...
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Is Plato contradicting himself in the Republic?
In Book VII of the Republic, Plato claims that geometry and arithmetic will lead to eternal/pure truth. However, as we know the eternal/pure truth are Forms. Knowing the forms is knowing the pure ...
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What does this excerpt from Plato's Republic mean?
This excerpt is from Book II, concerning Plato's reasoning for censoring a certain story of Hesiod's:
The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they ...
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What's the argument of Socrates in addressing Thrasymachus' argument that the pursuit of self-interest or injustice pays better than that of justice?
While reading The Republic by Plato, I don't quite understand the argument. It seems that the argument did not address why a just man won't be worse off than an unjust man.
What's the argument of ...
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What 'internal' or 'divine' sign is Socrates referring to in The Republic when talking about the scarcity of true philosophers?
What does Plato in Book VI of The Republic (496c) refer to when writing the following words of Socrates:
My own case, the divine sign, is hardly worth mentioning—for I
suppose it has happened to ...
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Socrates and The Republic
Why does Socrates think that right conduct cannot be defined as "telling the truth and restoring anything we have been trusted with"?
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What evils does Socrates refer to when discussing his State and the origins of war?
In Book II of The Republic (373e), as part of the discussion between Socrates and Glaucon, Socrates states the following (quote taken from Benjamin Jowett's translation):
Then without determining ...
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How applicable is the craft analogy for discussing the virtues, like justice?
In Book I of The Republic, Socrates uses a craft analogy (CA) as part of his argument against Thrasymachus to convince him that justice is not the advantage of the stronger. To do so he equates ruling ...
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Is this an example of Ceteris Paribus?
I just learned about the "All things being equal" tool in philosophy and am trying to see if the following passage from Plato's Republic is an example of it. The snippet from the passage goes like ...
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What does Thrasymachus accuse Socrates of when stating he argues like an informer?
In Benjamin Jowett's translation of The Republic, Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of arguing like an informer (340):
You argue like an informer, Socrates.
And later:
Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do ...
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Plato's Cycle: The Renewal?
Readers of Plato's Republic will be familiar with the cycle of regimes ("kyklos") that he describes. He ends this description with the fall of the tyrannical man, due to a self-imposed exile out of ...
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When did Plato's Republic (re-)emerge as his most popular work?
Today, the Republic is often considered to be Plato's best known and most influential work. Some even consider it as one of the best known and most influential works of all of philosophy; at least it ...
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Is there a similarity between Justice in Plato's Republic and the definition of wealth in Judaism?
I was reading Republic, and when Plato finally "finds" justice in the city, he defines it as a kind of "doing one's own work", which to me implies also the necessity of finding a certain satisfaction ...
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What is the symbolism of Piraeus in The Republic?
Plato's Republic opens with this famous sentence:
I went down yesterday to the Piraeus [...]
According to Professor David Roochnik, in his lectures about The Republic, the choice of Piraeus as the ...
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Seemingly invalid piece of reasoning in The Republic
In the beginning of The Republic, when discussing the nature of justice, Socrates leads Polemarchus to agree with him in this line of reasoning (the numbering is mine):
But let us consider this ...
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What were the government ideals for the Socrates and Aristotle?
Winston Churchill famously quipped, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." Plato also seems to have held such a view, where he wrote in The ...
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